Placebo OR Nocebo?
Have you ever heard about the Placebo effect? What about the Nocebo effect? Most people have heard the term placebo, but do you know what it means? Placebo is from the Latin for “I shall please”. Nocebo is from the Latin meaning “I shall harm”. Both words are typically used to refer to effects that a patient experiences when taking an inert substance -like a sugar pill – instead of an actual medication. These effects arise solely from the patient’s expectations of the results. If they believe that the “medication” will be helpful, they often recover. If they believe or fear the potential side effects of a drug, they often experience them – even when the drug is not actually there! The fact that taking a faux drug can powerfully improve some people’s health—the so-called placebo effect—has long been considered an embarrassment to the serious practice of pharmacology. Wired Magazine New […]
